My '10 Clubman Justa has crap rear camber alignment that won't even allow the best of one side to match the worst of the other side at -2.6°/-3.0°. So I've got H-sport rear lowers on order from Way (who was answering emails at 11:30PM BTW - wow).

The toe adjustment works fine, but I'm wondering whether I should replace the other pair too. I don't really want to bite off a second adjustable set, especially since the car is a daily that occasionally enjoys some spirited driving when possible, but not a track or autocross.

The alternatives are:
- leave the uppers alone
- replace the uppers with stock

Of course, I could replace the uppers with adjustables, but honestly I don't think I need that given the above, and Way didn't recommend it either.

Thoughts and insight welcome!

 

Just leave the uppers. Unless you are tracking the car and need all the adjustment, or yours are bent from some freak accident, there is no need to replace the uppers, even with new OEM arms.

 

Why so much camber? If it were mine I'd like to get to root cause before applying a solution.

 

MINIs have a lot of camber in the rear... about -2 deg (I’d have to look it up to be sure). The -3 is way out.

 

Bentley lists 1.75 degrees max for the std. suspension. Further the OP states that neither side can be dialed down (at least I think that is what was meant).

 

Do you know if that is for the Clubman or the Hatch or both?

None the less, both sides of the car are way off.

 

According to Bentley the alignment specs are the same for all models. There is a variant of the sport suspension that is slightly different.

I assume that Mini dials in a lot of rear camber to increase understeer.

 

That is what I would have guessed for the camber setting...

As for “increase understeer” maybe a better way to put it would be “to lessen the propensity for oversteer”. Any of these cars can be made to oversteer, which is something that you don’t want to happen in these cars... In my R56 I have dialed in the max negative camber in the rear for the track just because I don’t want that to happen and to balance the added negative camber I have in the front. And, no, the car doesn’t understeer like crazy and can be made to oversteer.

 

As mentioned, increased camber in the rear to lessen the chance that the back end comes around on you. All modern Minis are spec'd to have more camber in the rear than the front, even the GP models. And the way the rear suspension is designed, when the car leans over, even more camber is gained in the rear. With such a short wheel base, you really don't want the rear to be too loose.

 

I hope you mean the camber moves to be more positive when the car leans... negative camber is lost... Which makes the car more dangerous...

​​​​​​​Sooooo true!

 

As the suspension compresses, more negative camber is gained. Its built into the suspension design. The upper control arm pulls the top of the hub inward as it moves up, and the lower control arm pushes the bottom of the hub outward. I'm not sure what the actual gain numbers are, but that's what it does. That's why when you lower a Mini, it is recommended to get camber arms to bring the negative camber back into spec.

 

Body roll does more to remove negative camber than compression does to increase negative camber. Here is a picture from a Charlie Thompson post (link)


Charlie Thompson JCW estimated body roll 2.5 deg

As he explains in his post the body roll removes that amount of camber, which he estimates leaves him with about +0.4 deg of camber... his static front camber is -2.1 deg... Give how stiff these cars are, the rear will follow the front.

Compression or lowering the car only changes camber by a few tenths of a deg... The big winner here is body roll...